The Best of Us
by kendokao
Summary: They bring out the best  and worst  in each other. A collection of drabbles/short fic featuring Taichi and Sora throughout the ages in 500 words or less. Shippy and friend!shippy.
1. In the Cards

Disclaimer: The stories in this collection are not-for-profit fan works based on the _Digimon_ franchise.

**In the Cards**

She eyed the deck skeptically. "Tarot cards, Mimi? Really?"

"Come on, Sora, it'll be fun! Here, I'll do a three-card spread for you now, see?"

Sora sighed in resignation and watched Mimi lay the cards on the table. A wicked grin spread across the younger girl's face as she flipped the last card in the spread. Sora raised an eyebrow. "Well?"

Mimi leaned back into her seat, crossing her arms with an air of satisfaction. "Knight of wands. Your future," she declared, "holds a dark-haired young man, hasty and filled with energy. Sound familiar?"

Sora rolled her eyes. "If you mean Taichi, of course he's in my future – he's in my past and present, too. We've been best friends for ages, and that won't change anytime soon. I don't need cards to tell me that."

"It's more than that, and you know it; this is a good omen! Don't tell me you haven't thought about the prospects."

Sora merely shrugged. Mimi could believe what she wanted, but _she_ saw no reason to take this fortune telling business seriously.

Still, that didn't stop the knight of wands from flickering across her mind when Taichi finally kissed her.

**

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Author's Note: **Short and sweet, written in April 2008 for the fortune telling challenge at the Digimon Drabbles lj community.


	2. Clocks

**Clocks**

Since the age of three. Three! They'd been best friends for that long, yet in all that time she had never been late to meet him. Not once. If anything it was the other way around. She always arrived five minutes early, he always ten minutes late. Not so today. After fourteen long years of friendship, there he sat, staring at the clock and wondering where on earth she could be.

It took a few minutes for Taichi to realize that the clock on the wall was broken. _Stupid clock!_ he screamed mentally. Staring at the motionless device did nothing to help his already poor sense of time. He had no idea how long he'd been waiting, though it felt like an eternity. Annoyed, he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. 2:38. He'd been sitting there for a good half-hour.

Could he possibly have missed her? But she knew he always ran late; she wouldn't have left so early, would she? Maybe he misunderstood her. Had she perhaps meant the coffee shop inside the mall rather than the one across the street from it? Had something happened to her? Maybe he should call. Yeah, that seemed like a good idea. He anxiously dialed her cell phone number.

"Hi, this is Sora. I'm not here right now, but leave a message so I can get back to you." Damn it, straight to voicemail. He hung up without leaving a message. This was so not like her. What was going on?

Just as he started to dial her home number, the copper-haired girl burst through the door, completely winded. Hair ruffled in the back, one shoelace untied, last two blouse buttons askew, she looked like a wreck. "Ohmigod, Taichi, I am... so... sorry," Sora panted as she made her way over to his table. "Today's been horrible... Tried to call, but my phone's acting funny..."

He reached out and caught her in a hug. "Hey, don't worry about it. Just sit down and catch your breath while I get us some drinks. Strawberry frappe okay with you?"

She nodded, smiling gratefully. How was it that he always knew just what she needed?

A few minutes later he returned to the table, two drinks in hand. "So what's this about you having a horrible day?" he asked as he sat back down.

"Well, it all started this morning when my alarm kept going off at crazy times..."

"Stupid broken clocks!"

**

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Author's Note:** Gotta love Taiora friendship. Written in late 2005 with the 20 AUs prompt, "a machine with broken workings" in mind.


	3. Every Other First

**Every Other First**

Sora is nineteen when it happens.

It starts out as just another date night – dinner (he cooks) and a movie (she picks) – and they are laughing and kissing and his hand is on her chest and her tongue is down his throat and this is moving so quickly he tugs at her skirt she gropes for his belt buckle and –

She opens her eyes wide and stops.

Because this is her first time and it isn't him. It isn't him, it isn't _with him_.

All of her firsts are with Taichi. Well, maybe he wasn't her first crush because she was six when she had that, and life is simple when you're six, and crushing on your best friend is anything but simple. Okay, so he wasn't her first boyfriend, either. But he was everything else. Her first best friend, her first kiss, the first boy to make her cry, the reason for her first time out. So many firsts. And even though she never admitted it until now, somewhere in the back of her mind she always assumed he would be her first _this_, too.

This is wrong and she knows it. But all she can do is stop, just stop, apologize and excuse herself, except when she steps outside to clear her head, nothing is clear at all.

**

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Author's Note:** Written in December 2009, originally posted to the Digimon Drabbles lj community. I left the identity of Sora's date ambiguous because a drabble is too short for meaningless OC name-dropping, but I didn't want to be so unfair to the other male Chosen, either.


	4. Love You Like a Soccer Ball to the Face

**A/N**: Plot bunny of "first boy to make her cry" from the previous drabble, "Every Other First." Also from December 2009, published to the Digimon Drabbles lj comm.

**Love You Like a Soccer Ball to the Face**

Sora's left front tooth is loose. This is a momentous occasion because neither of Taichi's front teeth have come loose yet, which means she'll lose hers first, which means she _wins_.

So of course when they meet in the park to play soccer, she wiggles her tooth constantly and delights in his scowling face. All he can do in return is grumble that they should just start playing already. So they do, and for a while she is winning because he's still grumpy, and when he's grumpy, he's stupid. But then something hits her in the face very hard and she feels not one but two teeth floating around in her mouth, and she reminds herself not to swallow.

And even though she is not a crybaby (_she is not, she is not_), she cries right now because it happened so fast and it tastes like blood and it _hurts_, and even though he isn't a crybaby either and will punch you in the mouth if you say otherwise, he is crying too because she's crying and her face is all bloody and it's all his fault.

His mother rushes over from the playground and shoves Hikari into his arms, alternately scolding him and comforting Sora while she dabs at the little girl's bloody mouth and teary cheeks with a napkin from her purse. Later on she buys a big red popsicle for Sora and nothing for Taichi because he's not missing any teeth and should know better than to kick soccer balls at peoples faces.

"'M sorry, Sora," he mumbles, and as a peace offering he gives her charge of his soccer ball for the whole walk home. She grins, showing off the big gap where her two front teeth used to be. Oh, she has won indeed.


End file.
